PCT Annual General Meeting (9:30 am)

We’ll have a brief, informal AGM from 9:30 am to 10:30, to review PCT’s past year, and the exciting possibilities for the year ahead.  You can officially vote at the meeting, if you pay $2 to become a member of the Pender Community Transition Society.  In any event, we invite your ideas about useful PCT activity on the key community issues of energy, food growing, and economic relocalization.  One initiative that we’re currently seeking funding for is to reach out into our community with a Sustainable & Resilient Neighbourhoods Program.  The second proposed initiative is a Pender Island Hub (PIH) for Local Resilience & Sustainable Enterprise, which could benefit various non-profit groups and community members (see here for more).  To help us with our planning, please RSVP for the 9:30 am AGM if you can, by emailing info@pendercommunitytransition.ca.   This is especially if you’re part of a Pender group that might be interested in the above projects, but all community members are welcome.  If you can’t attend the AGM, you could also email about your interest or suggestions.

Fruit Tree Workshop (10:30 am)

Then there will be a free Fruit Tree Workshop from 10:30 to about 12:30.  Visiting experts Bob and Verna Duncan of Saanich (www.FruitTreesAndMore.com) will begin with a presentation about temperate fruit trees for our area.  Bob was instrumental in starting BC Fruit Testers, and is a super source of knowledge and actual fruit trees (of many varieties, including citrus). After a presentation and slide show, our guests will go into question and answer with the Penderites who attend, and dialogue with local experts too. This can include fruit tree choices, planting, care, grafting, pruning, preserving, semi-tropical options, and more.  Our goal is to increase fruit tree planting on Pender, and also to make more use of the beautiful trees we already have (e.g. more juicing, like the pictures below of the Pender Farmland Acquisition Project’s amazing press that they lend out). 

*To help us plan, please pre-register for this free Fruit Tree workshop if you can, by emailing info@pendercommunitytransition.ca.  You can also just stick your head in the Hall doors, to see what’s up.

We’d love to see you at either of our June 1 events (mark up your calendar).  The future is brighter, when we come together to help create it that way!

Thanks to borrowing the apple press of the Community Farmland Acquisition Project

In the meantime, we are pleased to announce the Southern Gulf Islands Economic Development Commission’s new website at www.sustainableislands.ca.   We are also pleased to provide this link to a leading edge document just released by the first Transition Town initiative – Transition Totnes in the UK (facing many of the same economic challenges as our island communities).  They have created an economic relocalization blueprint – a detailed, multi-stakeholder plan and set of quantifications, about bringing major resources back into their local economy.  We can do this too!

http://transitionculture.org/2013/03/28/local-economic-blueprint-highlights-potential-of-community-resilience/

community celebration & dinner!

Saturday, March 9, 2013, Community Hall

* click here for more

“Lately we’ve come under criticism from dealers in Nanaimo, who typically mark the heat pumps up 100%, and one or two are trying to get Fujitsu to stop selling to us.  That plus there being a lot of things to watch and details to keep track of during the installation process have led us to conclude we’re not at this time able to expand our wholesale purchase operation beyond Gabriola [i.e. to other islands, as some Penderites were requesting]..

What you might try doing is explaining to your dealer that you can’t afford the quoted price and ask if he’d be amenable to reducing markup on the unit and sharpening his pencil on the installation cost.  Assuming he’s quoted you on the Fujitsu 12RLS2 – the one we’ve found after extensive research to be best and are bringing onto Gabriola – he’s got a lot of room to manoeuvre.   For your information, someone who buys through us pays $1700 for the unit (wholesale price + tax + shipping) and maybe another $1000 (depending on complexity) for installation by a local contractor; ie – total cost around $2700.   Some people who are handy are installing them themselves, hiring someone with a refrigeration ticket to do the final hookup, and that brings the cost down to about $2000.  [Note: compare this to a recent professional ductless heat pump quote over $5,000 for a Penderite, including installation].

Something else you should know if you don’t already is that heat pumps usually qualify for a BC government rebate provided you register with the program, have an energy audit done on your home, and the auditor confirms a heat pump will be a worthwhile investment (which is usually the case).  For info call City Green at 1.866.381.9995 or visit www.citygreen.ca.   Sorry we can’t sell you a unit, hope this helps, and please let me know if I can help you with anything more.”

The new speaker on solar energy and available home refit grants is J. SCOTT (not J. Smith – see www.illuminatesolar.ca).  We are grateful also to have expert speakers Doug Green (www.advancedhomeenergy.ca) and John McQuaid (www.waterwindsolar.com).

The wonderful Kikuchi’s will be offering food and drink.  There are a variety of displays being gathered for your energy edification, including an electric car display outside the school, and now some info inside about living off-grid on Pender.  Some kids are also working hard on constructing a bike generator (a work in progress), and in the kid area, there will be a series of energy question stations for the young and old to play through.  See our poster and www.pendercommunitytransition.ca for more.  This Saturday is a free, fun, and informative community event.  Come learn and share about creating a brighter energy future, together!